More than just a walk in the park

New superintendent finds his life's work at Anza-Borrego

ANZA-BORREGO DESERT STATE PARK -- Mark Jorgensen's moment of inspiration came in 1963 when he was 11, camping with his pals on a Boy Scout trip at Split Mountain.

George Leetch, a desert park ranger, one-time pro boxer, Army GI at Normandy and San Diego State philosophy major, rumbled up to the boys' camp in a beat-up patrol jeep to talk about the desert.

Leetch was a rugged tower of a man, with skin tanned and creased by years in the sun. In leathery hands he carried the skull and horns of a bighorn ram.

He laid it on the ground and began to talk about the mysteries of Anza-Borrego. He told the boys that little was known about the bighorn, an elusive creature that stepped through this monochromatic desert like a shadow.

"That was about the end of it for me," Jorgensen said. "I was totally enthralled. Anza-Borrego became an obsession.

"As soon as I could drive, I was out here every single weekend."

Jorgensen's appointment last month as park superintendent marks a high point in a love affair with Anza-Borrego that spans four decades. Born in San Diego and raised in El Cajon, he decided early on that he wanted to be a park ranger here. Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, which covers 600,000 acres at the eastern edge of San Diego County, is the largest state park in the lower 48 states.

Jorgensen began working as a seasonal park aide in college, and later became a park naturalist. Over the past eight years, he has worked with his brother, Paul, as a park ecologist.

Jorgensen, a hearty man with a blond, graying beard and face reddened by the sun, lives in Borrego Springs with his wife, Kelley, and their two teen-age children, Jack and Carley.

Over the years, he has traveled to the deserts of Saudi Arabia, the jungles of Central America, throughout Europe and across the United States. But Anza-Borrego always beckons.

"After three or four weeks, I just get this great urge to head back," he said.

At 50, he is now the state park chief for the popular desert at a critical and controversial time in its history.

State officials are drawing up a plan to manage Anza-Borrego Desert State Park for the next 20 years. The plan will determine how open the park will remain to hikers, equestrians, mountain bikers, off-road-vehicle enthusiasts and others.

Jorgensen, a major player in how the plan will look, is a firm conservationist who has often come under fire from park users who want more access.

He was an architect of an initiative in the 1980s to set aside 404,000 acres -- two-thirds of the state park -- as designated wilderness to prohibit mountain bikes, dune buggies, trucks and other vehicles from venturing off the dirt roads that traverse it.

He was instrumental in removing wild cattle from the state park, remnants of a century-long cowboy era that faded decades ago.

Jorgensen also supported the controversial closure to four-wheel-drive vehicles of a 3.1-mile section of Coyote Canyon, which runs through creek beds and into the Middle and Upper Willow oases.